"Well," I answered, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, "last night I dreamt that Xena was giving me a colonscopy while my mother watched. I don't know what it means, but it's been giving me the heebie jeebies all day."

She shot me an odd look and said, "I mean are you having any troubles with your teeth?"

"Oh! No, not really," I replied. "Aside from that annoying whistling sound whenever I talk."

"Well, let's have a look, then, shall we?"

For the next hour, she picked and scraped, gouged and sanded, until my gums were raw and my teeth felt like I'd been chewing on refried gravel. When she was finally finished, she took off her welding mask and sighed deeply.

"Most of your front teeth are suffering from severe chemical damage, which would account for the whistling," she said. "I've seen it before, but usually not to such an extent. Typically, it's either the result of habitual methamphetamine use..."

"Or?" I asked suspiciously.

"Or excessive vomitting," she concluded.

"I CAN'T HELP IT!" I cried, leaping to my feet. "Every time I see that SMIRKING CHIMP on the cover of Time Magazine, I puke like Mary-Kate Olsen in the ladies room at Tony Roma's!"

"Mr. Chomstein..." my dentist tried to interrupt.

I tore off my bib and threw it on the ground.

"Person of the Year!" I spat. "Person of the FEAR is more like it! Red Alert! Orange Alert! Green Alert! Nipple Alert! Between the phony terror warnings and the FCC thought police monitoring everything I say, I'm afraid to crawl out from under my sink in the mornings anymore. And that ain't the half of it, sister! On Bush's watch, 150 million people lost either their lives, their jobs, or both. Half the country is being outsourced to Pakistan, and the other half has been brainwashed by cross-burning Jesus freaks. As we speak, little children - helpless little children - are being marched into religious gulags posing as public schools, where they're forced to say "under God" in the pledge, or even encouraged to practic abstinence against the very laws of nature. The air is unbreathable, the drinking water is full of arsenic, the Bill of Rights no longer exists, and two normal, law-abiding gay guys can't even walk down the street hand-in-hand without an inbred Repug making fun of their leather chaps and sequined cowboy hats."

"Mr. Chomstein, please."

"And the hegemony...oh, the hegemony!" I continued. "The whole world hates us, our allies despise us, and we're on the brink of nuclear armageddon because Bush and his red state church maggots waged an imperialist war for oil in order to pave the way for their "Messiah" to return, surfing on a tidal wave of AIDS victims and Enron pink slips! Meanwhile, innocent women and children are stripped naked and forced to play leapfrog across Gitmo by leering, chain-smoking midgets with no gaydar, as Donald Rumsfeld sits proudly upon huge pile of Halliburton loot, humvee armor, and crudely written form letters to the families of retarded jocks. The streets have turned to rivers of blood, the whole world hates us, Clinton's record budget surplus has vanished, squirrel numbers are declining, women are sacrificing their careers for their "family", and Jerry Falwell is drilling in ANWR. Peaceblossom is gone, Yassir Arafat is dead, Kirstie Alley is fat, and Mom's eating dog food right out of the can because Bush took away her social security in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent! If that's what it takes to become Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", then job well done, Dubya! MISSION A-F**KING COMPLISHED!!!!"

Having concluded my eloquent soliloquy, I took a deep breath and sat back down.

"Mr. Chomstein," my dentist commented politely from behind a large metal partition. "I thought we agreed not to discuss politics during your visits."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I got a little carried away. It must be the gas."

"I didn't give you any gas," she mumbled.

It was then that I realized that my dentist and the Shrub were in cahoots. I slapped myself on the forehead. How could I have been so naive? I should have known she was one of THEM when I spotted that copy of Time in the waiting room. I guess with the projectile vomitting, and the bubbleheaded receptionist's inconsiderate screaming, I must have somehow become distracted. The whole "Person of the Year" scam was obviously a plot to fill the pockets of Bush's big dentistry buddies!

I slowly backed out of the office, hopped into an elevator, and made my escape. Tomorrow, I'll thumb through the yellow pages and try to find a new dentist who isn't one of the pod people. Preferably, one who can discuss politics in a rational manner and doesn't pepper his office with right-wing propaganda.

"Well," I answered, gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling, "last night I dreamt that Xena was giving me a colonscopy while my mother watched. I don't know what it means, but it's been giving me the heebie jeebies all day."

She shot me an odd look and said, "I mean are you having any troubles with your teeth?"

"Oh! No, not really," I replied. "Aside from that annoying whistling sound whenever I talk."

"Well, let's have a look, then, shall we?"

For the next hour, she picked and scraped, gouged and sanded, until my gums were raw and my teeth felt like I'd been chewing on refried gravel. When she was finally finished, she took off her welding mask and sighed deeply.

"Most of your front teeth are suffering from severe chemical damage, which would account for the whistling," she said. "I've seen it before, but usually not to such an extent. Typically, it's either the result of habitual methamphetamine use..."

"Or?" I asked suspiciously.

"Or excessive vomitting," she concluded.

"I CAN'T HELP IT!" I cried, leaping to my feet. "Every time I see that SMIRKING CHIMP on the cover of Time Magazine, I puke like Mary-Kate Olsen in the ladies room at Tony Roma's!"

"Mr. Chomstein..." my dentist tried to interrupt.

I tore off my bib and threw it on the ground.

"Person of the Year!" I spat. "Person of the FEAR is more like it! Red Alert! Orange Alert! Green Alert! Nipple Alert! Between the phony terror warnings and the FCC thought police monitoring everything I say, I'm afraid to crawl out from under my sink in the mornings anymore. And that ain't the half of it, sister! On Bush's watch, 150 million people lost either their lives, their jobs, or both. Half the country is being outsourced to Pakistan, and the other half has been brainwashed by cross-burning Jesus freaks. As we speak, little children - helpless little children - are being marched into religious gulags posing as public schools, where they're forced to say "under God" in the pledge, or even encouraged to practic abstinence against the very laws of nature. The air is unbreathable, the drinking water is full of arsenic, the Bill of Rights no longer exists, and two normal, law-abiding gay guys can't even walk down the street hand-in-hand without an inbred Repug making fun of their leather chaps and sequined cowboy hats."

"Mr. Chomstein, please."

"And the hegemony...oh, the hegemony!" I continued. "The whole world hates us, our allies despise us, and we're on the brink of nuclear armageddon because Bush and his red state church maggots waged an imperialist war for oil in order to pave the way for their "Messiah" to return, surfing on a tidal wave of AIDS victims and Enron pink slips! Meanwhile, innocent women and children are stripped naked and forced to play leapfrog across Gitmo by leering, chain-smoking midgets with no gaydar, as Donald Rumsfeld sits proudly upon huge pile of Halliburton loot, humvee armor, and crudely written form letters to the families of retarded jocks. The streets have turned to rivers of blood, the whole world hates us, Clinton's record budget surplus has vanished, squirrel numbers are declining, women are sacrificing their careers for their "family", and Jerry Falwell is drilling in ANWR. Peaceblossom is gone, Yassir Arafat is dead, Kirstie Alley is fat, and Mom's eating dog food right out of the can because Bush took away her social security in order to give tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent! If that's what it takes to become Time Magazine's "Person of the Year", then job well done, Dubya! MISSION A-F**KING COMPLISHED!!!!"

Having concluded my eloquent soliloquy, I took a deep breath and sat back down.

"Mr. Chomstein," my dentist commented politely from behind a large metal partition. "I thought we agreed not to discuss politics during your visits."

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I got a little carried away. It must be the gas."

"I didn't give you any gas," she mumbled.

It was then that I realized that my dentist and the Shrub were in cahoots. I slapped myself on the forehead. How could I have been so naive? I should have known she was one of THEM when I spotted that copy of Time in the waiting room. I guess with the projectile vomitting, and the bubbleheaded receptionist's inconsiderate screaming, I must have somehow become distracted. The whole "Person of the Year" scam was obviously a plot to fill the pockets of Bush's big dentistry buddies!

I slowly backed out of the office, hopped into an elevator, and made my escape. Tomorrow, I'll thumb through the yellow pages and try to find a new dentist who isn't one of the pod people. Preferably, one who can discuss politics in a rational manner and doesn't pepper his office with right-wing propaganda.

Click to expand...

This made me think and laugh. I think it belongs in humor and am moving it.

Hurricane Katrina; Has America Forgotten?
This week marked the one year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which means its time for white Americans to look into the mirror and ask themselves what they have done to make life easier for the millions of impoverished Blacks they allowed to drown in New Orleans. The answer is, to put it bluntly, diddly squat. Despite all the promises to rebuild the Chocolate City and restore it to its original chocolatey goodness, houses ripped from their foundations still rest in the middle of the streets, with large crowds of local politicians standing around wondering what Bush is going to do about it. Parts of the Gulf of Mexico are still completely underwater. The thousands who fled Louisiana haven't been offered enough cash incentives to come back, and the grinning skeletons of entire Black families who remained behind carpet the rooftops to this day, patiently waiting for rescue teams that will never come.

We can never completely repay African-Americans for what we did to them in New Orleans, nor can we ever wash the blood of slavery off our hands. But there are meaningless little gestures we can make to show the Black community that we at least care enough to pretend like we give damn about their suffering. Naming a street in your community after Dr. Martin Luther King, for instance. Giving Halle Berry an Oscar. And most importantly, understanding that African Americans are essentially helpless children who need constant nurturing to survive.

About ten years ago, I noticed a homeless African-American man panhandling on the street corner outside my apartment building. Realizing that as a white man I was somehow responsible for his sorry state of affairs, I felt obligated to make amends. So I gave the poor man a crisp ten dollar bill, and he thanked me profusely.

The next day, I passed the same guy begging for change again. I gave him another ten bucks as I walked by. Blesh you shir, he slurred. Gah Blesh you! I shook my head and reminded him that the money was his by rights. In an anglo-centric system of White Privilege built through the exploitation of African slaves, every dollar a white person earns is essentially stolen from a black person - or from any other minority (except for those damn Asians who are practically house Negroes because they work hard and don't complain).

On third day, the poor guy was still out there on the corner but he didnt even bother to thank me when I gave him another ten dollars. He just nodded as if he had expected it. Nevertheless, I gave him ten dollars every single day for the next two or three weeks. By the end of the month, rent was due and I was a little short on cash, so I had to skip my reparations payments for a while. Then one afternoon as I was knitting macrame bong sweaters for Hempfest '96, there came a loud pounding on my door.

LIAR!" he growled back at me. "YOU TOOK ME FROM AFRICA AND BROUGHT ME OVER HERE IN CHAINS! NOW I WANT MY FORTY ACRES AND A MULE!!!

As a progressive American sensitive to the plight of the oppressed hyphenated peoples, and aware that as a White American I am to totally blame for it, how could I possibly argue with him? I quickly slipped my credit card under the door, and listened as his footsteps dwindled away down the hall.

That was the last I heard from him until a couple weeks ago, when he knocked on my door as I was knitting bong sweaters for Hempfest '06. I looked through the peephole and saw a transformed man. Clean cut, shaven, and wearing a nice suit, he was almost completely indistinguishable from the downtrodden street bum I had met ten years before.

I want to shake your hand, he said when I opened the door and greeted him. Before I met you, I was a broken man, and convinced that I was totally to blame for my condition. But your stup...err, generosity opened my eyes. Thanks to you, I was able to rise up out of the gutter and begin a rewarding and lucrative career transforming white guilt into cold hard cash. Now I'm running for Congress in the State of Maryland, and I'm counting on your support.

Of course, Mr. Mfume!" I agreed, beaming with pride. "I'll be more than happy to help in any way I can! I'll campaign, I'll pass out flyers, whatever you want!"

Later that evening, as I crawled onto the mountain of delinquent credit card bills and pay or vacate notices I've been sleeping on since I pawned my flotation tank, I congratulated myself on a job well done. In a small way, I had fulfilled my duty as the descendent of people with the same color skin as slave owners to enrich the lives of people with the same color skin as slaves 150 years in the grave.

No longer can the racist great, great, great, great grandchildren of plantation owners use the fact that they weren't even alive during the era of slavery to escape their responsibility for the plight of African-Americans. Hurricane Katrina will make sure of that. Like Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, it will forever serve as an annual booster shot of white guilt.

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